Tag Archives: water protectors

Our title descends from Isaac Asimov, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” So it goes with the varied forces of “order” deployed at Standing Rock, and their unhinged use of excessive weapons, better suited to the battlefield. Using such weapons against unarmed, peaceful Water Protectors is both cowardly and criminal.

Consider the violence committed against Sophia Wilansky, a recent college graduate who joined the Water Protectors in expression of her own deeply held conviction that the ongoing exploitation of fossil fuels amounts to wanton ecocide. While exercising her constitutional right to assemble and protect the water supply, Ms. Wilansky was viciously attacked by police with rubber bullets and an explosive concussion grenade, severely injuring her arm.

SOPHIA WILANSKY PRIOR TO HER INJURY AS THE RESULT OF CRIMINAL INCOMPETENCE

The Morton Sheriff Department, compounding the cowardice of using such a weapon against Ms. Wilansky by fabricating a ludicrous explanation from some delusional alternative univese, released the following statement:

On this Indigenous People’s Day, we open our ears to the words and songs of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and elsewhere around the world.

We are grateful to the DP reader who steered us to an essay by Chickasaw Nation writer-in-residence Linda Hogan, excerpted below. The images are from a No Dakota Access Movement video that can be accessed by clicking within any of the frames.

We also take time today to honor the memory of Berta Cáceres and other brave protectors of sacred and essential resources who have been murdered over the past year by the agents of ecocidal capitalism. Let us wake up!